Generational Impact of Mass Trauma - Human Dignity and ... · These Young Turks were successful in seizing the Sultan’s power by revolution and reinstating the liberal constitution

12

Generational Impact of Mass Trauma: The Post-Ottoman Turkish Genocide of the Armenians

Dr. Anie Kalayjian and Ms. Marian Weisberg

The attempted destruction of the Armenian people by the Ottoman Turkish Government

from 1895-1915 not only cost one-and-a half million Armenian lives but created massive trauma

for many of those who survived. This chapter explores the physical, psychosocial, and spiritual

impact of Genocide on the offspring of survivors. Concomitantly, the authors utilize therapeutic

modalities to work with this form of generational transmission of mass trauma.

Introduction

Articles addressing the generational transmission of the Genocide of the Armenians

began to be published in early 1980s. In about two decades there have been only a handful of

research articles addressing this transmission. By contrast, over the past three decades, several

hundred articles and dozens of doctoral dissertations have been written and published on the

transmission of the effects of the Holocaust on further generations.

This chapter presents a review of the findings of an exploratory study conducted by the

authors with second and third generation survivors of the Ottoman Turkish Genocide of the

Armenians living on the East Coast of the United States of America.

Since the Armenian plight is not well known to many, the authors will present a historical

background cited from both Armenian and non-Armenian perspectives, in an attempt to provide

a balanced review.

Generational Impact of Mass Trauma 255

© Dr. Anie Kalayjian and Ms. Marian Weisberg

Historical Background

Armenia is an ancient nation which occupied the region of historic Armenia, including

what is now northeastern Turkey, from before 500 B.C.E. until their attempted annihilation in

1915 (Walker, 1991). Armenia was the first nation to accept Christianity as its state religion in

301 C.E., while the surrounding Ottoman nation accepted Islam around 648 C.E.

Armenia was one of many nations conquered by what was eventually consolidated as the

Ottoman Empire. Ottoman Turks considered Armenians, the non-Muslim minority, as second-

class citizens and for centuries subjected them to oppression. For example, Armenians and other

Christians had to pay special taxes, including child levies (Housepian, 1971; Hovannisian, 1985;

Reid, 1984), and were forced to give Muslims and their herds free room and board for up to 6

months under the hospitality taxes (Housepian, 1971). In some areas, Armenians were barred

from speaking Armenian except when praying (Hovannisian, 1985), and the first author

researching the survivors of the Genocide interviewed a woman who had known Armenian men

in her village whose tongues had been cut out for speaking in Armenian. Armenians were

subjected to forced migration, enslavement (Reid, 1984), and repeated massacres (Dadrian,

1995; Lidgett, 1897). Armenians were also barred from giving legal testimony or bearing arms,

leaving them no legal recourse or self-defense against gun-bearing Muslim neighbors

(Hovannisian, 1985; Kalfaian, 1982).

When Sultan Abdul-Hamid II, known in history as the Damned or the Bloody Sultan,

came to the throne in 1876, he created the Hamidiye, an irregular cavalry modeled after the

Russian Cossacks, to carry out pogroms against the Armenians just as the Tsar used his

irregulars to persecute the Jews. Hamit massacred hundreds of thousands of Armenians during

his reign, in 1894 in the Sassun villages, in 1895-1896 throughout the Turkish Empire, in 1904



again in Sassun, and there is suspicion that he was behind the 1909 massacre in Adana and

Cilicia, which coincided with the attempted coup d’état in Constantinople (Istanbul) (Papazian,

1993).

Enlightened Turks were distressed by the misrule of Abdul-Hamid, as were the

Armenians or the European powers. These Turkish patriots began to organize a revolutionary

movement called the Committee for Union and Progress (CUP). This group was well known in

Europe and America as the Young Turks. These Young Turks were successful in seizing the

Sultan’s power by revolution and reinstating the liberal constitution of 1876. Having managed a

successful revolt against the Sultan, the Young Turks then turned on the Armenians, claiming

Turkey for the Turks. The new implication of the racist policy was that the minorities, especially

the Armenians, had to be eradicated (Papazian, 1993).

Lord Bryce’s “Blue Book,” The Treatment of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire,

1915-1916, edited by Arnold Toynbee, is one of the most damning single early sources of the

eyewitness accounts of the Genocide of the Armenians, 1915-1916. According to Toynbee

(1916), in the Genocide of the Armenians the criminals had been members of the Committee of

Union and Progress, above all, perhaps Talaat, the most intelligent of the ruling triumvirs. In the

course of the seven years spanning 1909-15, the leaders of the CUP had apparently degraded

from idealists into ogres. How was one to account for this sinister metamorphosis? According to

Toynbee, the deportations of the Armenians had been carried out by orders from the Government

in Istanbul. The Turkish gendarmes and soldiers executed these orders without having any

personal connections with the localities.

Exploiting the international confusion created by World War I (1914-18), the Turkish

authorities declared the native minority Armenians as Christians and therefore enemies of the



Ottoman Empire (Kazanjian, 1989). Adult males, especially those identified as potential leaders,

were arrested, escorted to desolate spots, and shot (Krieger, 1989). This process was designed to

deprive Armenians of leadership and representation so that forced deportations might proceed

with less resistance (Kuper, 1981). Henry Morgenthau, the American Ambassador to the

Ottoman Empire from November 27, 1913-February 1, 1916, provides detailed descriptions of

the forced marches, rapes, pillaging, and destruction of life. Morgenthau writes that “I called on

Talaat, I argued in all sorts of ways with him but he said that there was no use; that they [the

Turks] had already disposed of three-fourths of them [the Armenians], that there were none left

in Bitlis, Van, Erzeroum, and the hatred was so intense now that they have to finish it. He said

that he wanted to treat the Armenian like we treat the Negroes, I think he meant like the Indians.

I told him three times that they were making a serious mistake and would regret it. He said we

know we have made mistakes, but we never regret” (Journal entry of August 8, 1915, in Lowry,

1990).

Missionary reports all tell the same general story: Armenians all over Anatolia were

expelled from their homes, slaughtered and massacred, and the remnant driven into the Syrian

Desert to die. Thousands of these reports are on file in the archives of the American Board of

Commissioners for Foreign Missions, which are now deposited in the Houghton Library at

Harvard University and open to scholars (Papazian, 1993). According to Papazian (1993),

American Consul Leslie Davis of Kharpert wrote on July 11, 1915 that the entire movement

seemed to be the most thoroughly organized and effective massacre Turkey had ever seen. Davis

wrote dozens of reports to Morgenthau telling essentially the same story of mass murder on a

horrifying scale (Papazian, 1993). Davis’s report to the State Department detailed how few

localities could be better suited to the fiendish purposes of the Turks in their plan to exterminate



the Armenian population than the peaceful lake Goeljuk in the interior of Asiatic Turkey. That

which took place around beautiful Lake Goeljuk in the summer of 1915 was almost

inconceivable. Thousands and thousands of Armenians, mostly innocent and helpless women

and children, were butchered on its shores and barbarously mutilated (Davis, 1915).

The Genocide was planned and premeditated by the leaders of the Committee of Union

and Progress; and was carried out by a covert and secret Special Organization (Teskilati

Mahsusa) established by the CUP. German officials stationed in Turkey reported that the

campaign had killed 1.5 million Armenians, including 98% of the Armenian male population and

80-90% of the total Armenian population of Turkey (Compiled in English in Dadrian, 1994).

The Armenian presence in Asia Minor has been recorded over three Millennia.

Armenians, Ottomans, Persians, Greeks and Arabs lived there, side-by-side. Although there were

many stories of neighborly collaboration, love, and sharing, politically, there was a constant

struggle for dominance. There were many relatively minor campaigns by the Ottomans to

destroy Armenians, but none as vast and heinous as the systematically planned and executed

Genocide of 1915.

Immediately prior to World War I, Armenians comprised the elite in Anatolia. Armenians

were the educated physicians, attorneys, architects, and even numbered among the high-ranking

Ottoman Empire officials. In 1915, during World War I, as the Ottoman Empire was on the brink

of disintegration, there was overwhelming fear and hysteria in the land. In that panic, the

Ottomans needed to identify an enemy. Armenians were the easy targets right in their backyards;

especially since Armenians were Christians, and for Turks, all those who are not Muslims are not

to be trusted, and are called “gavour,” meaning “faithless.”



Feelings of inadequacy, rivalry, and therefore anger increased among the Ottomans.

Armenians were the ones going to Europe and receiving higher education, and coming back

home with a new philosophy of democracy and human rights. So long as the Turks remained

dependent on the Armenians they were filled with a sense of inadequacy and rage.

The Turks assaulted the Armenian intelligentsia first, rounding them up and summarily

executing them. Then they destroyed the churches, schools, and educational centers. Then they

collected all weapons that Armenians might use to defend themselves. And lastly, they raped the

women, killed the children, and drove the rest out of their homes and into forced death marches.

Common to most cases of genocide is the projection of a perpetrator's own intentions

onto the group targeted for genocide. In this case, the Ottomans claimed that the Armenians

would be siding with Russia and taking over the Ottoman Empire, just as Hitler claimed that the

Jews were out to rule the world, when he was planning his own world conquest.

Armenians in Diaspora

The surviving remnants of the Armenians were scattered throughout the globe after

World War I, to whatever countries would accept refugees. Outside the Middle East or Russian

Armenia, these refugees were often the first and only Armenians, and even there, the pre-existing

community’s resources were vastly overwhelmed by the survivors’ extraordinary destitution

(Kupelian, Kalayjian & Kassabian, 1998).

In the United Sates, these new immigrants frequently settled in tight-knit urban

communities (Mirak, 1983). Their world was starkly split between the outside world of strangers

and their inner, shared world of intimate community. Their American neighbors were asked to

bring in a nickel per person to help the starving Armenians without knowing why they were



starving. The Great Depression and the new horrors of World War II followed, which relegated

the Genocide of the Armenians to historical obscurity, and swept up the traumatized remnants of

the Armenian people with everyone else. Frequent denial of their plight surrounded Armenians

with mixed feelings: indifference vs. over involvement, and anger and rage vs. peaceful

interventions.

Currently, there are approximately one million Armenians living in the United States of

America, with the majority settled on the West Coast; 90% of those who did not migrate from

previously Soviet Armenia are offspring of the Genocide survivors.

Purposes of the Study

Whereas research focusing on the survivors of the Holocaust of the Jews is vast, very few

studies have been conducted to explore the impact of the Genocide of the Armenians on its

survivors and their descendents. The descendants of the Genocide survivors have only recently

turned to conducting studies relevant to understanding intergenerational issues. When Armenians

first emerged from their catastrophic trauma after World War I, psychology was in its infancy;

there was world silence around this issue, and there was no impetus for collecting this group’s

personal data, in contrast to the reparation requirements that produced much of the early

literature on Holocaust survivors (Kupelian, Kalayjian & Kassabian, 1998).

The purposes of this study are to explore: (1) the intergenerational impact of the

Genocide on the Armenian offspring, (2) the physical, emotional and spiritual effects of the

Genocide on the offspring, (3) how participants dealt with their emotions, re. the Genocide, and

(4) the effectiveness of group techniques in facilitating the processing and integration of those

feelings.



Study Method

The Armenian American Society for Studies on Stress & Genocide (AASSSG) organized

a workshop for the children and grandchildren of survivors of the Ottoman Turkish Genocide of

the Armenians. This workshop was open to all those whose lives had been directly or indirectly

impacted by the collective trauma of the Genocide. Participants were given two questionnaires:

the first 18-item questionnaire elicited demographic information. The second 8-item pre-

workshop questionnaire elicited specific emotional reactions, ways used to cope with those

reactions, feelings, and reactions regarding the Turkish denial and involvement in the Armenian-

American community. At the end of the workshop the participants were retested with the same

questionnaire to elicit the impact of the workshop.

Announcements regarding this workshop were placed in Armenian-American

newspapers, as well as on websites. Interested participants were encouraged to register. There

were no fees charged to register. There were approximately eighteen telephone inquiries; and

eight people participated in the workshop. The workshop took place at a University in New York

City. It was a full day workshop. Workshop facilitators were experienced group leaders, who had

worked in the field of Genocide and trauma studies for over a decade. They were both offspring

of the Genocide and Holocaust survivors. Adjunctively, a chiropractor who specialized in

psychosomatic manifestations and non-verbal body language was invited to assist the

participants in gaining a greater awareness of how emotions effect body sensations. He too was a

child of a Genocide survivor. Kalayjian’s six-step Bio-Psychosocial and Spiritual model was

utilized. The following are the six-steps of this model: 1) assessment, 2) expression of feelings,

3) empathy and validation, 3) discovery of positive meaning, 4) information dissemination, 5)

diaphragmatic breathing exercises and being mindful of the body. These different steps address



the mind-body-spirit continuum and several aspects of the traumatic event. The model attempts

to assess, validate, empathize, inform, and engage in a discussion of rediscovery of meaning, and

provides physical relaxation (Kowalski & Kalayjian, 2001).

Style of leadership included self-disclosure with the intention of providing positive role

modeling. At the conclusion of each step, the facilitators offered ego-supportive strategies, when

deemed appropriate.

The facilitators and body specialist reviewed the results of each question to identify

categories of themes for developing a method for content analysis.

Study Results Part 1: Sociodemographic and Socioeconomic Characteristics of Respondents

Respondents ranged in age from twenty-two to seventy-eight. There were two males and

six females. Educational background included a minimum of a Bachelors degree with one in

progress. Three were children of survivors, the remaining five were the grandchildren of at least

one survivor grandparent. Five of the participants were born in the United States, two in

Lebanon, another in Iran. For those who were born outside of the US, the year of entry ranged

from 1946 to 1997.

Four of the participants were single, two widowed, one divorced, and one married. Three

of the participants were college students, three were retired, two employed.

Part 2: Pre-Workshop Questionnaire

In response to the first question, eliciting the earliest history or a picture regarding the

Genocide, each participant recalled stories of their traumatized and wounded parents or

grandparents, including physical scars from being shot while attempting to escape. There were

also psychological wounds from the massive loss of family members. The feelings characterizing



these memories were combinations of anxiety, confusion, and curiosity. In recalling these

memories, participants expressed deep sadness, helplessness, a sense of being overwhelmed,

paralyzed, and experienced intense psychic pain.

When asked about the ancestors involved in the Genocide, responses ranged from eleven

siblings of their mother to parents and grandparents. All of the participants recalled a memory of

the murder of a primary family member.

When asked how their own memories affected them personally, responses ranged from

such violence being a major factor in shaping their identity, to making them cynically angry, and

intensely curious about the tragic past. In addition they expressed mixed feelings, re. their

relationship to the larger Armenian community. On the one hand they felt closer to the

Armenian-American community, hoping to keep the memories alive; on the other hand there

were feelings of being burdened and wishing to distance themselves from the community.

In response to the impact of the Genocide on the survivors, responses ranged from it

having a devastating effect on their ability to live a normal emotional life, burdening them with

sadness, being forced to live in the past, to living in a continuous state of trauma. In response to

the impact of the Genocide on the Armenian people in general, responses included protracted

suffering, deep sadness, and distrust of outsiders, especially in light of the continued world

denial of the Genocide.

One participant observed that there is a connection between the legacy of survivorship

and their relationship to food and starvation. She recalled experiences with her own father who

was a survivor, expressing extreme disturbance when there was food uneaten. It was defined as a

sin. The first author recalled one of her American professors stating that while she was growing

up in the 1930s she was told to bring in a nickel for the starving Armenians, never knowing what



caused their starving. The second author recalled similar issues around food with Holocaust

survivors in concentration camps.

When asked if there were things they did or avoided doing regarding the Genocide, the

following was expressed: there was general paralysis and a deep sense of helplessness, especially

in regard to the Turkish denial, and the search for finding a proactive stance. When asked with

whom they have spoken about their memories of the Genocide, fifty percent had spoken to no

one before the workshop, and most were surprised at how strongly they felt about this topic

without having verbalized it before. Three spoke with friends, one person spoke with her mother

and grandmother, and another with a therapist.

Regarding the ongoing Turkish denial of the Genocide, all participants expressed

experiencing feeling an attack on their personhood, feeling like a non-person. Others voiced

generalized pain and confusion. One participant suggested that perhaps Armenians were not

strong enough to unite and counter this denial in an appropriate fashion.

With regard to the meaning of Turkish acknowledgment of culpability for the Genocide,

participants expressed the following: the need to foster a historical identity, to experience

psychological relaxation, to receive compensation after an admission of the truth, and the ending

of all Genocide.

When asked what would be considered an adequate compensation for their family losses

and sufferings, the following reactions were expressed: two-thirds of the participants indicated

that acknowledgment of the truth and a return of Armenian lands was important. One person

expressed hopelessness as exemplified by the following statement: “past losses cannot be made

up; they can’t bring all my relatives back; we need a long time for rehabilitation.” Another

pointed out the importance of compensation as well as improved political relationships of the



two countries.

In response to their experiences with the Armenian-American community there were

mixed but strong feelings ranging from over-involvement, on the one hand, to negative feelings

and withdrawal on the other. A few respondents stated their skepticism, re. parochialism. A few

others expressed how different these Armenian communities were depending on the host

country, i.e., Lebanon, Syria, Iran and the United States. Two others expressed anger at not being

accepted by the Armenian-American community due to their lack of proficiency in the Armenian

language, or their mixed ethnic family background.

Part 3: Facilitators’ Observations

The facilitators observed that participants maintained some level of distancing as

evidenced by their coolness and resistance. For example, group members did not console or

reach out to one other when given an opportunity to do so. Participants did not interact

cohesively. The facilitators speculated that, contributing to this lack of cohesion were: (1)

diversity of age, resulting in two generations represented in the group (2) diversity of birthplace,

as the group consisted of both foreign born and native born, and (3) diversity in ethnicity,

resulting in two members with mixed Armenian and non-Armenian parentage.

For example, connectedness between group members through eye contact was fair but

not well-sustained or continuous. Male participants would look at objects around the facilitation

space without looking at the others. Female participants usually looked at the facilitators or down

at a table. Sustained visual contact with slow and well-paced speech suggested emotional

responses of anger or sorrow in most participants. Some spoke quickly as if they were reporting

a story without any emotional response.

Initially, participants had difficulty in establishing rapport with one another. This



improved throughout the day. Body posture and eye contact were noticeably improved as

participants listened to each other’s tragic stories and shared their own feelings. Facilitators

noticed an undertone of anger, which was displaced and projected at certain emotional points.

One intervention was shifting awareness to feelings and thereby assisting participants in

expressing those feelings, through emotional openness, acknowledgement, and finally through

tears.

At the end of the workshop, members of the group expressed appreciation and gratitude

for the opportunity to participate. They also expressed how instrumental the workshop had been

in assisting them in talking about difficult issues that most of them had not shared with others

previously. They concluded by asking for future similar opportunities.

Part 4: Results of Post-Workshop Questionnaire

In response to question one, related to the earliest memory regarding the Genocide,

although participants expressed having some of the same memories, they reported a change in

their feelings and attitudes associated with those memories. One respondent stated that she was

more conscious of feelings that she had not acknowledged before. The feelings included sadness,

helplessness and anger. Another respondent, who had not been able to recall a picture, was then

able to for the first time. The picture was of her father’s obsession with finding family members,

since he was taken away from them and forced on the death march. A third participant stated that

his confusion cleared up after the workshop, but he kept his pride associated with his identity as

an Armenian. His confusion was related to his belonging to a hated Christian minority. A fourth

respondent expressed being much more connected to the memories of the Genocide. She

described a sense of awareness which was absent beforehand. She also expressed feelings of



guilt at being safe, secure, and economically stable, while at the same time carrying around these

Genocide memories.

When asked what effects they thought the Genocide had on them, most of the

respondents were consistent with the expressions of the pre-workshop questionnaire. One

respondent had yet an additional memory of being seven years of age and torn over her feelings

of love for a Turkish classmate, whom she found defined as the enemy. Another respondent

expressed a sense of purpose, which was missing in his pre-workshop response.

When asked if there was anything the participant did or did not do regarding the

Genocide, the majority did not express excessive concern. One respondent was plagued by her

feelings about death as she raised questions regarding her wish to make up for the lives of the ten

people who were taken away from her family during the Genocide. When asked about the

continuing Turkish denial, all respondents expressed sadness, hurt, anger, and helplessness.

In response to what they considered adequate compensation, most of the participants still

felt that no one could compensate for the loss of their family members and loved ones, yet at the

same time there were strong ideas about the following possible options: an offer of an apology,

normalization of relations with the Republic of Armenia, restoration of all Armenian monuments

in Turkey, payment of compensation, and removal of the blockade. Two strongly stated the

necessity to return lands taken.

In response to their experiences with the Armenian-American community the majority

expressed a degree of involvement, ranging from low to high commitment. Some noted the

fragmentation of the Armenian community, attributing it to cultural differences in different parts

of the Diaspora.



Discussion and Analysis

According to Niederland (1981), the physical and psychological trauma of persons

brutally persecuted, incarcerated, and tortured, rarely heal. Shoshan (1989) confirms that

children of survivors react to the lack of memories and absence of dead family members. This

was a problem to a few of the participants in this research, where they stated feeling like

orphans: no roots, no relatives, no uncles and great aunts—not by choice, but by force.

The majority of the respondents in this study expressed feeling burdened by having to

carry emotional memories of previous generations. They were thus saddled with a sense of

forced responsibility for carrying the memories and helping their ancestors. Most of these

participants felt this was an infringement on their freedom, and some second-generation

respondents reported resentment. This is consistent with then reflections of Aaron Hass, a child

of Holocaust survivors. According to Hass (1990), the most important event in his life occurred

before he was born. Others of second generations report being drawn to memories and

descriptions of genocide and therefore expressing their parents’ unexpressed sadness and rage.

This confirms Israeli Psychologist Shoshan’s (1989) assertions, after studying Holocaust

survivors and their children, that longing and mourning are transmitted from generation to

generation. This sense of being burdened is also found as one reaction to the magnitude of the

survivor’s loss, leading to the tremendous onus of expectation on the children of the Holocaust

survivors. The parents often looked to the children as magical reincarnations of their lost worlds

(Freyberg, 1980; Kestenberg, 1972; Sigal, 1971).

Among the workshop participants, some expressed this sense of oppressive burden forced

upon them and responded by cutting their ties to the Armenian-American community, which

they described as a sense of obligation; while forcing involvement, others get over-involved with



their community. This latter group attempted to sublimate their negative feelings into positive

actions as reflected in their careers, i.e. studying Armenian Literature, making Armenian movies,

participation in their community through volunteering, lobbying, and transcending the traumatic

sequelae. This was consistent with the study by Boyajian and Grigorian (1982) of the children of

the Armenian survivors.

Distrustfulness was another major theme expressed by those who were told not to trust

anyone outside their own families. This is consistent with some post-Holocaust families (Hass,

1990). According to Hass, for the children of survivors the world is hostile, as their parents

impart to listeners firsthand observations of man’s savagery. Historically, the message given was

that the outside world is not to be trusted. Post-Genocide Armenian families continued living in

fear of the outside world, since the threat to their lives continued due to geographically

widespread Ottoman oppression even in those countries where they took refuge. According to

Epstein (1979), children of Holocaust survivors also share varying degrees of over-responsibility

to their parents, and distrust the world.

Participants expressed deep and intense feelings of helplessness on many levels: personal,

collective, and global. Most of this helplessness centered on the persistent Turkish denial of the

Genocide. This is consistent with research findings of Kalayjian and Shahinian (1998), where

39% of the Armenian survivors reasserted the evidence that they had witnessed the Genocide.

When asked to express their feelings about the Turkish denial, typical responses included: “I saw

with my own two eyes how hundreds of people were placed in a big hole in the ground and

burned to death.” “What then happened to my clan? Out of 90 relatives, only three have

survived.” “What of my sister who was raped by a group of Turkish Gendarmes and then set on

fire in front of my eyes?” According to Kalayjian (1995), other offspring of the Genocide



survivors—who also experienced the 1988 earthquake in Armenia—also reported having

nightmares involving similar images of the Ottoman-Turkish atrocities. This helplessness was

also expressed in anger. Feelings of anger were turned both inward and outward. Anger turned

inward was expressed in self-criticism. This was apparent in the workshop, as participants

struggled with an object for their anger, and a means by which they could work it through.

Workshop facilitators became increasingly aware that initially, participants had no mechanisms

to process their anger. This was interpreted as complex anger, as part of it was no doubt inherited

from their parents and grandparents who survived the Genocide.

Anger that was not expressed internally was expressed horizontally: toward one another,

to other Armenians, toward the facilitators in the workshop. According to Kalayjian (1999), this

is a common phenomenon when Armenians as oppressed people, failing to process their

inherited anger, therefore, cope by displacing it horizontally onto their fellow Armenians.

In response to communicating these feelings with others, over fifty percent of the

participants expressed problems with communication. This is consistent with some findings in

post-Holocaust Jewish families, where some parents did not talk so as to protect their children.

According to Danieli (1985) and Peskan et al. (1997), the issue of communication (literally

knowing another and ultimately knowing oneself) thus becomes a focal theme for many children

of survivors. This is also consistent with research findings by Kalayjian et al. (1996), who found

that three out of four Armenian survivors interviewed asserted that they did not talk to anyone

about their experiences of the Genocide. Most of these survivors did not communicate for fear of

continued persecution and with the overhanging threat of death to self and the remaining loved

ones. This general lack of communication suggests their traumas were not resolved (Kalayjian et

al., 1996).



Cahn (1987) has found a correlation between the ability of Holocaust survivors to

communicate/symbolize their experiences of traumatic events and their posttraumatic health. Her

work suggests that in order to cope with an affectively intense experience such as genocide in the

healthiest possible manner, one would need to modulate affect with cognition by talking about

the experiences. The review of the Holocaust literature confirms that those parents who refrained

from ever mentioning their Holocaust experiences (usually in an attempt to shield their children

from the pain), reported more disturbances in their children (Epstein, 1979; Kestenberg, 1982;

Link, Victor, & Binder, 1985). One hypothesis is that a lack of actual information leaves a

vacuum filled by horrifying fantasies, and because the horror is not grounded in history, it is

experienced as part of the child’s self (Lipkowitz, 1973). Those parents who are able to share

their history with appropriate affect, and in controlled doses, do not seem to harm their children

(Kupelian, 1991). These parents have likely integrated their experiences more effectively, and

their stories are told with sensitivity to the listeners. These findings are in line with a study by

Rosenheck (1986), which found that children of World War II combat veterans with chronic

longstanding PTSD were adversely affected by too much or too little discussion of their father’s

war experiences, while those who discussed it in controlled doses were not adversely affected.

Cultural differences account for some varied responses in the two groups of Holocaust

and Genocide survivors. For example, survivor guilt has been described as a major manifestation

of the survivor syndrome among Jewish survivors of the Holocaust (Krystal & Niederland, 1968;

Niederland, 1981). Danieli (1985) has described various defensive and coping functions of

survivor guilt for this population, including a commemorative function. In this function, guilt

serves to maintain a connection and a bridge of loyalty to those who perished, and to

metaphorically provide the respectful regard of a cemetery that these victims were denied.



However, this guilt experience is not documented in the Armenians. According to

Kalayjian, et al. (1996), survivors did not express feelings of guilt for survival. This accords with

a study done by Boyajian and Grigorian (1982), which found that only a few respondents talked

about guilt, which was associated with duties to the living (i.e., not having done enough for the

Armenian community), and, among the second generation, not having done enough for their

survivor parents. In this current study, only one participant expressed guilt over leaving, being

economically stable, and living in a democratic country, while her ancestors suffered

persecution.

Although scholarship in this area places emphasis on the importance of not generalizing

survivorship, the authors are recommending here not to generalize nor pathologize generational

transmission as well.

Conclusion

This study began with a group of second and third generation Armenian-American

survivors of the Ottoman-Turkish Genocide. Participants were frozen and non-cohesive at first

and grew into a cohesive group whose members were able to not only process their own

unexpressed feelings, but also to support one another.

According to Courtois (2001), working with the psychosocial impact of trauma through

the group medium offers an opportunity to restore a sense of reality, a catalyst and context for

the exploration of feelings, and a challenge to one’s emotions and beliefs. Groups give an

opportunity to talk about and bear witness to the trauma, to grieve, to restructure the assumptive

world, and to restore trust.

This is consistent with the observations of the facilitators that the group was instrumental

in reaffirming one’s identity, as well as providing an opportunity to collectively explore ways of



coping. According to Yalom (1985), the group is a social support for exchange between

members, offering catharsis, hope, and an examination of life’s existential factors. Yalom also

notes the existential factors that group members address collectively: recognizing that life is at

times unfair and unjust. There is no escape from life’s pain, and fearing the basic issues allows

living life more honestly.

Research indicates that mental and emotional stresses are felt and held in the body (van

der Kolk, 1992). Assessment of the body revealed tension and sadness in their neck and

shoulders as well as their voices. Attentive and gentle work with body awareness techniques

opened opportunities for healing conflictual mental and emotional stresses and transmitted

traumas. Thus, through the utilization of body messages one may accelerate the healing process

and free the individual of long held tensions.

As the facilitators measured the impact of the group process, they noted that the group

struggled with the existential question of rapprochement with the Turkish perpetrators of the

genocide, their current offspring. The group also struggled with the current refusal of the Turks

to acknowledge that the Genocide occurred. A particular anger, similar to that of the second

generation of the Jewish Holocaust, is generated by this question, as members brought out their

frustrations about unwanted victimization. The anger is an outcome of feelings of helplessness

and powerlessness.

Compared to the German Government, which made reparations, the Turks have not

evidenced any admission of culpability. They repeatedly blame their atrocities on the Armenians

themselves. The sting of this anger appears to move the group process to a type of hopelessness

and melancholy. This discussion at the same moment increased group cohesion, since all

members shared a similar outrage, and were able to validate one another. Yalom (1985) confirms



the curative factors of this cohesiveness, where individuals no longer feel alone. Also cited by

Courtois (2001), the joint sharing of trauma tends to most closely approximate group catharsis.

Catharsis can relieve long held anger, which this group addressed in this first meeting. According

to Sullivan (1953), validation of a traumatic experience is an essential step toward resolution and

closure. In addition to such group validation, the group decided that an explicit expression of

remorse by a perpetrator, or the next generation, would have enormous healing value, as was

reinforced by Staub (1990).

Recommendations

The authors recommend further research to explore feelings of generational transmission

of trauma in Armenians as well as non-Armenian offspring of mass trauma. In this group, the

opportunity to process feelings was well utilized when the group melancholy was transformed

into hope, as expressed by the wish for further workshops. According to Yalom (1985), groups

can instill hope by seeing how others can get better and solve similar issues. By the end of the

workshop, the group interacted with hope, which facilitators attributed to the release of sadness

shared so that their individual isolation was dismantled. One example is the South African Truth

Commissions, where by the acknowledgement of crimes against humanity, the world witnessed

and therefore validated the fact that an injustice had been perpetrated. Henceforth was the

beginning of an attempt at reconciliation and healing.

When the trauma is properly processed emotionally there is a cathartic effect. When the

facilitators can validate each participant’s feelings, and offer empathy, this will help reintegrate

the trauma into one’s personality in a more effective, therapeutic, healthy, and meaningful way.



Bibliography Boyajian, K. & Grigorian, H. (1982, June 20-24), Sequelae of the Armenian Genocide

on Survivors. Paper Presented at the International Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide, Tel Aviv, Israel.

––– (1988), Psychosocial Sequelae of Genocide of Armenians. In R. G. Hovannisian (Ed.), The Armenian Genocide in Perspective. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, pp. 177-185.

Cahn, A. (1987, August). The Capacity to Acknowledge Experience in Holocaust Survivors and

their Children. Paper presented at the 95th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, New York, NY.

Courtois, C. (Nov. 9, 2001), Group Therapy of Trauma. Presentation at the Eastern Regional

Group Psychotherapy Association Meeting. New York, NY. Dadrian, V. (1994), The Secret Young-Turk Ittihadist Conference and the Decision for the World

War I Genocide of the Armenians. Journal of Political and Military Sociology, 22 (1): 173-202.

Dadrian, V. (1995), The History of the Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict from the Balkans

to Anatolia to the Caucasus. Providence, RI: Berghahn Books. Danieli, Y. (1985), The Treatment and Prevention of the Long-Term Effects of Intergenerational

Transmission of Victimization: A Lesson from Holocaust Survivors and their Children. In C. Figley (Ed.), Trauma and Its Wake. NY: Brunner-Mazel, pp. 295-313.

Davis, C. (1915). U.S. Department of State, Record Group 59, International Affairs of Turkey,

1910-1929 (Microfil Publications) Microcopy 353: 88 reels, especially 867.4016/1-1011, reels 43-48.

Epstein, E. (1979), Children of the Holocaust. NY: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. Hass, A. (1990), In the Shadow of the Holocaust. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Housepian, M. (1971), The Smyrnia Affair: The First Comprehensive Account of the Burning of

the City and the Expulsion of the Christians From Turkey in 1922. NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Hovannisian, R. (1985), The Armenians Question, 1878-1923. In G. Libaridian (English Lang.

ed.), A Crime of Silence: The Armenians Genocide. Bath, UK: Pitman Press, pp. 11-33. Freyberg, J. T. (1980), Difficulties in Separation-Individuation as Experienced by

Offspring of Nazi Holocaust Survivors. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 50: 87-95. Kalayjian, A. S. (1995), Disaster & Mass Trauma: Global Perspectives in Post Disaster Mental



Health Management. Long Branch, NJ: Vista Publishing. ––– & Shahinian, S., Gergerian, E., & Saraydarian, L. (1996), Coping with Ottoman Turkish

Genocide: An Exploration of the Experience of Armenian Survivors. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 9 (1): 87-97.

––– & Shahinian, P. (1998), Recollections of Aged Armenian Survivors of the Ottoman Turkish Genocide: Resilience Through Endurance, Coping, and Life Accomplishments. Psychoanalytic Review, 85 (4): 489-504.

––– (1999), Forgiveness and Transcendence. Clio’s Psyche, 6 (3): 117-119. ––– & Kanazi, R. L. & Aberson, C. L. (2002), Cross-Cultural Study of the Psychosocial and

Spiritual Impact of Natural Disasters. Journal of Group Tensions, (in press). Kalfaian, A. (1982), Chomaklou: The History of an Armenian Village (Trans. K. Asadourian).

NY: Chomaklou Compatriotic Society. Kazanjian, P. (1989), The Cilician Armenian Ordeal. Boston: Hye Intentions. Kestenberg, J. S. (1972), Psychoanalytic Contributions to the Problem of Children of Survivors

from Nazi Persecution. The Israel Annals of Psychiatry and Related Disciplines, 10: 311-325.

Kestenberg, M. (1982), Discriminatory Aspects of the German Indemnification Policy: A

Continuation of Persecution. In M. S. Bergmann & M. E. Jucovy (Eds.), Generations of the Holocaust. NY: Basic Books.

Kowalski, K. M. & Kalayjian, A. (2001), Responding to Mass Emotional Trauma: A Mental

Health Outreach Program for Turkey Earthquake Victims. Safety Science, 39: 71-81. Kreiger (1989), The Armenian Genocide: An Outline. The Armenian Church, 8. Krystal , H. & Niederland, W. (1968). Clinical Observations on the Survivor Syndrome. In H.

Krystal (Ed.), Massive Psychic Trauma. NY: International Universities Press, pp. 327-348.

Kupelian, D. (1991). Inter-generational Transmission of Trauma: The Case of the Holocaust. Unpublished paper, American University, Washington, DC.

Kupelian, D., Kalayjian, A. S., Kassabian, A. (1998), The Turkish Genocide of the Armenians:

Continuing Effects on Survivors and their Families Eight Decades After Massive Trauma. In Danieli, Y. (Ed.), International Handbook of Multigenerational Legacies of Trauma. NY: Plenum Press, pp. 191-210.

Kuper, L. (1981), Genocide: Its Political Use in the Twentieth Century. NY: Penguin Paperback. Lidgett, E. (1987), The Ancient People. London: James Nisbetter. Link, N., Victor, B., & Binder, R. L. (1985), Psychosis in Children of Holocaust Survivors:



Influence of the Holocaust in the Choice of Themes in their Psychoses. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 173: 115-117.

Lipkowitz, M. H. 1973), The Child of Two Survivors: A Report of an Unsuccessful Therapy.

The Israel Annals of Psychiatry and Related Disciplines, 11: 141-155. Mirak, R. (1983). Torn Between Two Lands: Armenians in America, 1890 to World War I.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Morgenthau, H. (1975), Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story. NY: Doubleday Pope & Co (1918,

First Print, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page); Plandome, NY: New Age Publishers. Neiderland, W. G. (1981), The Survivor Syndrome: Further Observations and Dimensions.

Journal of American Psychoanalytic Association, 29 (2): 20-31. Peskin, H., Auerhahn, A.C. & Laub, D. (1997), The Second Holocaust: Therapeutic Rescue

When Life Threatens. Journal of Personal and Interpersonal Loss, 2: 1-25. Papazian, D. R. (1993). Misplaced Credulity: Contemporary Turkish Attempts to Refute the

Armenian Genocide. In Genocide & Human Rights: Lessons Learned From the Armenian Experience. Belmont, MA: Armenian Heritage Press. Special Issue of the Journal of Armenian Studies, 4 (1 & 2), pp. 227-256.

Reid, J. (1984), The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman and Turkish Historiography. Armenian

Review, 37: 22-40. Rosenheck, R. (1986), Impact of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder of World War II on the Next

Generation. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 174: 319-327. Shoshan, T. (1989), Mourning and Longing From Generation to Generation. American

Journal of Psychotherapy, 43 (2): 193-207. Sigal, J. J. (1971), Second-Generation Effects of Massive Psychic Trauma. In H. Krystal and W.

G. Niederland (Eds.), Psychic Traumatization: After Effects in Individuals and Communities. Boston: Little, Brown & Co.

Staub, I. (1990, April), Denial of the Armenian Genocide: Compounding the Crime. Conference

Presented by the Armenian Center at the School of International Affairs, Columbia University, NY.

Sullivan, H. S. (1953), The Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry. NY: W. W. Norton & Co. Toynbee, A. J. (1916). The Treatment of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. London: Sir

Joseph Causton and Sons. Niederland, W. G. (1981), The Survivor Syndrome: Further Observations and Dimensions.



Journal of American Psychoanalytic Association, 29 (2), 413-425. van der Kolk, B. A.(1992). Group Psychotherapy With Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. In H.

Kaplan & B. Sadock (Eds.), Comprehensive group psychotherapy. Baltimore, MD: Williams & Wilkings, pp. 550-560.

Walker, B. (1991, Apr. 5). Armenia at Crossroads. (Television News Broadcast). Las Angeles:

CBS News. Yalom, I. (1985), The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy. NY: Basic Books.

Note: The authors wish to extend their deepest gratitude to Jerry Piven, Robert Kondarjian, Harold Takooshian, Irve Weisberg, David Lionel and all the workshop participants for their support.

Published in Jihad and Sacred Vengeance (2002). Edited by J. S. Piven, C. Boyd, and H. W. Lawton. New York: Writers Club Press. Pages 254-279.

Documents

Generational Impact of Mass Trauma - Human Dignity and ... · These Young Turks were successful in seizing the Sultan’s power by revolution and reinstating the liberal constitution